You could throw Garage or Minio in a container and upload the images to a public bucket.

I’ve been the one setting up the TV app, etc.

That is exactly the issue. I can’t personally set up the app for all my users. Most of them are not in my household.

That doesn’t prevent your client from uploading, your client seeds while it is downloading. It will still complete and do the same thing anyway, every client I know of will show as completed when all the requested content is downloaded.

Download smaller movies then. There are trackers that specialize in highly compressed low quality encodes. You will have to make sacrifices somewhere if you don’t want to spend any money on a VPN.

OP, you seem to have a lot of requirements for someone who isn’t willing to spend any money on a VPN. You either trust the VPN provider or you don’t. If you aren’t paying for it, assume your traffic is being monitored and monetized somehow.

You asked about VPNs, people gave you options, and it looks like you’ve turned down every one of them. A free unlimited VPN with no strings attached that allows torrenting at high speeds does not exist. You may as well be searching for a unicorn.

Windscribe has a free tier and you can sign up for unlimited data at a single VPN server for only $1 per month.

I ordered a TrueNAS system from iXsystems a few years ago, and the reasoning they gave me is that Linux has better driver support, especially for home users.

Whether that was actually the reason, I have no clue. But that’s what they said.

I’ve never even heard of signal

Operating system and CPU architecture are useful for sites to serve the correct binaries when a user is downloading an application. I know you could just give them all the options, but the average idiot has no idea what the difference between ARM and x86 is, or whether they have a 64 bit system. Hell, I wouldn’t even trust some users to accurately tell me what operating system they’re using.

You don’t need a contract. In the United States, anyone can sue anyone for anything. No laws need to have been broken nor contracts breached.

It’s not illegal in the US either, but you can still be sued by employers for doing it.